Fraudulent hoarding should be a crime

Perhaps there would be nothing wrong with holding onto money collected for another purpose, if just holding onto it did no harm.

But it does, and it is wrong.

Specifically, money collected under a state law designed to promote tourism and create jobs has been doing neither — for decades.

Instead, the funds collected by Electric City from those who use motels and campgrounds within the city have lain fallow, earning next to no interest, instead of being used for their purpose laid out so clearly in statute by the Washington State Legislature.

If a business collects money saying that it will use the funds one way, but decides not to deliver on that promise, people can go to jail. It’s called fraud.

This problem goes back a long way; it’s not just a product of the current city council’s ideas.

Some members of the city council now want to set apart most of the money it has collected from tourists, not to promote tourism, but to build … something. No one knows what.

Under the law, the funds can be used to build tourism-related facilities. There is nothing wrong with that. But the original and primary reason the law was passed was to boost tourism, thereby building local economies all over the state and creating jobs.

That’s how the frustrated chamber of commerce has wanted to use the funds for years: Advertise the beauty of the coulee area to draw people here, fill the motels and campgrounds, which would then collect even more of the tax and fill the city’s coffers even higher.

Instead, most of the money sits in the fund doing nothing because somebody thinks they might want to do something with it that has never been discussed with the public, or anybody else, as far as we know.

Evidently, that’s not a crime, but it should be.

Scott Hunter

editor and publisher